


Slightly Sideways

by Queen_Kit



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Short au ramble
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-26
Updated: 2019-11-26
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:40:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21565450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Queen_Kit/pseuds/Queen_Kit
Summary: An au where Hermione has the elder wand, Voldemort failed at horcrux creation, and and decision changes history.
Relationships: Hermione Granger & Harry Potter & Ron Weasley
Comments: 1
Kudos: 28





	Slightly Sideways

**Author's Note:**

> Really short au idea

Hermione Granger holds a wand in her hand and feels chills. Her uncle handed her his weird stick and it’s a  _ wand _ . Magic has been so close to her all along and she never knew it. But this... this wand feel ominous. She hides it in her room and doesn’t tell her parents. Going with them to Olivander’s she finds a lovely vine wand. It doesn’t thrum with the power of her uncle’s wand, but it warms her from the inside out like a comfort she didn’t know she needed.

She still takes the other wand with her to Hogwarts. Every morning it seems to call her from her trunk, and every morning she refuses it. This is not the moment... this is not the moment. She doesn’t know why, she just  _ knows _ . She searches the library for answers but she doesn’t find any. All she finds is disappointment that divination will have to wait until she can choose her electives.

She goes along as best she can, doing well in classes even while she has trouble making friends. She always has trouble making friends. She bites her lip and wishes magic had been able to make her into an ideal self who could... and then straightens her shoulders reminding herself that she must accept who she is. She just has to find the right sort of people, the kind who are open to a girl who is how she is.

She finds them in the most unexpected way, and in people she didn’t expect.

The boy who speaks before he thinks, brash and irritating, but kind underneath. It turns out he’s just trying to fit and fighting to shine while used to a family where a thick skin has been an unnoticed survival trait.

And the boy in all the books who isn’t really. He’s just a boy thrust into a spotlight and savior-ship he never knew about. She sees him make himself small at the first sign of anger and struggle to catch up within a world that expects so much of him.

At first she thinks she’s going to be the one to educate them. They both need help learning  _ how to learn _ . Time management, study schedules, she dives in hard and fast. It’s terrible, but eventually it works out. They teach each other.

Hermione learns how to be flexible, how to teach, how others can learn different.

Ron learns why reading and focusing is hard, tools to help work his own way, when to gentle his tongue.

Harry learns how to ask for help (at least from these two friends), how he learns, that he is smart now that he can be, he learns to take some kindness without fear.

They learn other things as well. Now that they are not one, but a they.

The day they race to stop evil from getting a stone Hermione knows this is the moment and pulls her Uncle’s wand from her trunk.When they reach the final room she presses it into Harry’s hands.

“You’ll need this.”

In this world Lord Voldemort has made several mistakes.Harry Potter is the only surviving horcrux left for all his soul is in tatters.Two wands point at each other. A madman’s rage meets a child’s untamed magic mother’s protection. In the end Voldemort falls first and forever.

Harry Potter falls in exhaustion with a scar on his face that finally begins to heal in truth.

In a world slightly sideways Albus Dumbledore credits Lilly Potter for her son’s second survival and Lord Voldemort’s final defeat. The elder wand, stuffed in a baggy sleeve unnoticed, makes its way back to the bottom of Hermione’s trunk where she and Harry both ignore it until Ron’s silly move of wrapping it in aluminum foil surprisingly renders it silent.

Harry refuses to return to the Dursley’s and finds a warm summer home with the Granger family. Next summer perhaps he stays with the Weasley family... perhaps Sirius is released and he and Remus sort themselves and take in the only Son of the Marauders, whatever happens it’s better than the years before.

They enjoy the next six years of Hogwarts in peace. That’s not to say the world is perfect, but they graduate and move into a world that they will make better, because even without evil, even without a wand of power. That is who they are.

And they are happy.


End file.
